


to where the heart breaks (or is bronzed)

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [228]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, The Arafinweans are very frank and good and solid, even tho Galadriel has a long way to go with empathy, set before Gwindor and FIngon leave The Tent, title from Robin Blaser AGAIN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: She never loved her mother as much as her father.She is too much like her.
Relationships: Finrod Felagund | Findaráto & Galadriel | Artanis
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [228]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	to where the heart breaks (or is bronzed)

Sometimes, Galadriel feels as if her father is dead.

Finarfin, buried in black earth, under rain, like _his_ father was. The mourning flowers—she can already see them as furled eyes, sunspots, banners of affection and remorse.

Why is the image vivid, yet necessarily set thousands of miles away? Why does she think that she will return to New York in time for a funeral—or, conversely, that any harm will befall him before she does?

The nightmare of it, the cathedral splendor of a finished life against a western world too wild to even know his name, is what comes of loving a soft man; a gentle man. She never thought him _weak_ —but she thought him open and friendly; quick to trust.

Since New York has been a speck and a silence and a memory, she has seen so many people who are like that suffer and die. Death desires them; Death devours them.

Death always knows, who is loved.

And the loss—the suffering—of a few ingrates is not the balm she thought it would be.

Maybe there has not been suffering enough.

 _Oh, Artanis_ , Earwen scolds, in her mind. Earwen, who is _not_ dead. _How could you?_

She never loved her mother as much as her father.

She is too much like her.

Night, and a starveling sliver of moon. Shadows on the lake, as well as silver—banks of cloud-darkness along the shores. The lights of Mithrim cannot be seen if one turns her back.

Galadriel turns her back.

She taps the fingers of her knife-hand, gun-hand, right hand against her left elbow. When you survive alongside other people, you learn things about the way they move in times of trouble. Fingon seizes his hair with both hands when he is vexed, or smitten by grief.

Turgon scowls with his mouth and nose seeming to twist in opposite directions.

Aredhel blinks too quickly when she is lying.

Things like that.

“Sister.”

“Brother.” She says it wryly, but she loves him. Finrod, slumped beside a fire, with Beren and the two wild children nearby. The children are sleeping. Fingolfin and Fingon have not come out of the tent where they brought the body.

“You have eaten?” He always asks that, and she always has (when there _is_ food), because she has a hearty appetite.

“Get up from your slouching,” Galadriel says, “If you can.”

Everyone else in the world would think Finrod was sitting straight as an arrow, just now. But Galadriel knows her brothers. Knows his shoulders. 

Knows what he looks like when he is alive.

(She knows her father, too, is alive.)

(It is only that—)

“I am glad,” he says, under the eaves of the grove, “That you wanted to speak privately. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Beren.”

Galadriel scoffs. “You couldn’t. He’s _Beren_. A child!”

“He’s older than Fingon.”

“Age has nothing to do with whether or not one is a _child_ , Finrod. You didn’t grow up because of _years_ , you grew up because you came west. All alone. And I am not a child any longer, because I’ve seen people die.”

“So has Beren.” He scrapes a hand back through his hair. In daylight, it would be almost exactly the same color as hers. A little brighter. She won’t admit it, but it is a little brighter. “Artanis. Please. Let us be serious for a moment.”

She nods.

“I don’t want you to go and see Maedhros.”

In her waking dream of her father’s funeral, there is not a Feanorian in sight. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Finrod Ingoldo? I don’t _want_ to see whatever sorry bag of bones Fingon brought back! No, don’t you _dare_ try to scold me for that. They’re murderers. They’re _all_ murderers. Down to the twins, for all I care! Aunt Anaire’s blood, and Argon’s blood, is on _their_ hands.”

“Perhaps you have had no reason to notice,” Finrod says, very quietly, “Because you and I, as a family, have had no losses, but one of the twins is gone. I haven’t seen him anywhere. They were younger than Argon.”

Galadriel’s voice is like a bird caged in her throat. Which is to say: it does not escape.

“Galadriel.” He covers his mouth with his hand, then, as if to keep her name inside it.

Perhaps her name flutters too.

There is no one to see them. Aredhel has hidden away, doubtless brooding over Celegorm, who slipped into the camp this morning. Turgon is with some of the newcomers. He doesn’t like anyone, much, so what company he keeps does not matter.

And as for strangers—

No. No one is near.

Galadriel pulls him fiercely down into her arms. “You will never understand how I hate them,” she whispers. “And I will never share your love for them. Finrod, I don’t—I can’t. But I won’t leave. I came west because—you and I were meant to see the world together. You needn’t warn me away, for the sake of any fear.”

His arms tighten around her. She and Finrod do not share a heart, because his is kinder, but she likes to think that they have always been forged by the same sort of courage.

She doesn’t know, why she fears the deaths of those she left in safety.

All the reasons her mind supplies, all the reasons that the winter supplies, say nothing of the future.

Maybe she has not suffered enough.


End file.
